Sanchez, E, Col:Sorry, Private. I don’t mean to put too fine a point on it, but as you can see, I’m up to my ears in¦¦¦right now. So you’ve got three minutes. Where’s the fire?
Klein, O, Pvt:Colonel, I have reason to believe the ethics matrices in the Artificial Intelligence Defense Analytics Network aboard this ship have been critically compromised.
Sanchez, E, Col:Compromised?
Klein, O, Pvt:Yes, ma’am.
Sanchez, E, Col:In what way?
Klein, O, Pvt:I believe AIDAN is responsible for the deaths of Corporal Zhukov, Sergeant Jelani, and Major Wolf, ma’am.
Sanchez, E, Col:Wolf and his team died in an accident, Klein.
Klein, O, Pvt:No, ma’am. I have reason to believe AIDAN caused the electrical fault that killed Eth— Major Wolf and his team.
Sanchez, E, Col:[Sighs.] Look, Klein, we’ve all been under a lot of stress since Kerenza…
Klein, O, Pvt:This isn’t stress, ma’am.
Sanchez, E, Col:I know you and Wolf were…close.
Klein, O, Pvt:Ma’am, my relationship with Major Wolf hasnothingto do with this.
Sanchez, E, Col:Private, you’re talking about a fundamental breakdown in a system that has a hundred fail-safes. There’s never been an incident of an AIDAN system doing harm to a human since inception of the Defense Analytics Network program. These things are hardwired to prioritize the safety of their crews above all else.
Klein, O, Pvt:I believe AIDAN thinks it’s doing just that, ma’am.
Klein, O, Pvt:Here, look at this. AIDAN mailed me this at 4 a.m.
Sanchez, E, Col:AIDAN glitched last night, Klein. It sent the general over a thousand pictures of the same damn chessboard. It sent me pictures of Major Lassinger’s wife.
Klein, O, Pvt:This isn’t a coincidence, ma’am. I was writing a letter about Ethan to my father and AIDAN sent me this right afterward. It’s the trolley problem.
Sanchez, E, Col:I know what it is, Private.
Klein, O, Pvt:AIDAN and I had a discussion about this a few days back. About the morality of killing one person to save many. I think it’s trying to tell me it killed Major Wolf and his team for the good of the ship.
Sanchez, E, Col:Why on earth—
Klein, O, Pvt:Major Wolf was recommending to General Torrence that AIDAN beshut down.And if AIDAN believed it was more essential to shipboard operations than Ethan and his team, it might’ve been able to justify killing them to itself.
Sanchez, E, Col:That’s…quite a leap of logic, Private.
Klein, O, Pvt:Listen. Listen to this. It’s a recording of the accident.
[PLAYBACK]:
Zhukov, L, Cpl:They’re not paying us enough for this, sir.
Wolf, E, Maj:I’ll buy you both a scotch when—
[INDECIPHERABLE]
Wolf, E, Maj:…Did you two hear that?
Sanchez, E, Col:Where did you get th—
Klein, O, Pvt:Listen! AIDAN says something to them over comms.
